It’s with the aptly titled Goodbye Deponia that Daedalic Entertainment wrap up the Deponia point and click trilogy. The first two titles were a fantastic return to form for the point and click genre, and although there were notable similarities between Deponia and other point and click titles – most notably between Rufus and Guybrush of the Monkey Island series – they provided some fantastic looking and interesting hours of entertainment. To conclude the trilogy though, Daedalic have pulled all the stops to deliver a satisfying swan song to Rufus’s adventures and, in some areas at least, turn it up to 11 with mixed results.

The storyline is where things get really interesting. Following on from the previous two titles in the series, all the characters you have come to love and loathe are here in equal measure. I won’t spoil the story too much, but it’s a bit of a ‘do or die’ situation that Rufus and his Elysium girlfriend find themselves in and, as always, not everything is quite as it seems.

As this is the third in a trilogy, to get the most out of this final title you really need to have played and finished the previous two. It’s not a necessity by any means, but the shear amount of in-jokes and the rather complicated story threads really become all that more clearer with a certain amount of knowledge of the series. While many of the jokes and puns are what you would expect, Daedalic have surprisingly decided to put some quite dark moments in Goodbye Deponia including an attempt to make jokes out of child molestation and suicide. At one point you even have to watch a child eat some pills and, as a result, have to give the baby laxatives in order to get the pills back. Brave perhaps, but probably not a subject most people will appreciate being included.

If you have played through ether of the first two titles, you won’t be surprised by the lush visuals on offer here, mainly because they look exactly the same. Not that that’s a bad thing mind you, as visually the Deponia games are wonderful. It’s nice to see that they have tightened up the animation side of things though. It’s still not perfect, but it’s a marked improvement over what we saw in the previous Deponia games and does not give you that ‘bad FPS’ feel. While the gameplay is pretty much the same (you didn’t expect any different did you?) the problem solving on offer does feel a lot more varied and there is a significant lack of puzzles which appear to have been thrown in there just to pad things out.

It’s obvious that the Deponia series is a work created with a love of the PnC genre, and Goodbye Deponia is certainly the strongest in the series. It’s not perfect though. Apart from the previously mentioned risky comedy, some of the localisation with Daedalic are normally superb at does have its issues this time around, with some lines seemingly losing a lot in translation from German to English. While the problem solving is more varied, some of them are frustratingly hard and while Goodbye Deponia does allow you to skip some of the harder mini-games and puzzles, at times it feels like it’s resorting to ‘trial and error’ rather then logical thinking that the series has become known for.

But for all it’s niggles and minor issues Goodbye Deponia is a solid end to the trilogy. It’s hard though to recommend it as a stand-alone title though. Sure, it’s possible to play it and to some extent enjoy it, but Goodbye Deponia is obviously for fans of the series whom I’m sure will enjoy this a lot.